The Whispering: A Haunted House Mystery (6 page)

The wind was still gusting angrily at the windows, causing the worn frames to rattle like dry, dead bones. The drapes at the long windows stirred as if invisible hands clutched at them, and Michael, reaching the landing, saw with relief that the low light was still burning, so that at least this would not be the classic walk through the dark old house. He peered cautiously over the rail. The dim light sent shadows chasing across the floor of the vast hall below, and the trees immediately outside the windows moved their branches back and forth. It was absurd to think their shadows were forming into the outline of a human figure – a figure that was trying to get into the house to be safe …

He went down the stairs and across the hall. The thick old door was still and silent, the heavy bolts in place. Michael put his hand on the surface and felt it creak slightly. Old timbers. Old frame, probably badly-fitting after so many years. Nothing more.

Two narrow windows flanked the door, each with a padded window seat, and Michael went to the nearer one and knelt on the faded velvet, peering out. The glass was old and slightly uneven, and rain streamed down it, distorting the view of the dark gardens beyond. Even so, he did not think anyone was out there. It's all right, he thought. The house is locked and secured and it's perfectly safe.

‘Safe … Yes, I always felt safe in this house …'

Stephen, thought Michael, whipping round to scan the shadowy hall. But Stephen had been dead for nearly a century.

He was about to return to his room when a new sound reached him, and something moved at the head of the stairway. Michael's heart bumped into overdrive, because a figure had walked across the landing above him and was slowly descending the stairs. A figure in whose pallid face the eyes were deeply shadowed so that they resembled dark pits, and who walked with a curious uncoordinated gait as if propelled by some invisible force outside of its control.

He stifled a gasp and instinctively pressed back into the concealment of the window alcove. But before his mind could form Stephen's name and image again, a thin light fell across the figure and he saw that it was Luisa. Michael, his pulse-rate returning to near-normal, drew a deep breath of relief, and prepared to explain about investigating suspicious noises. Then he saw that no explanation was necessary. Luisa appeared to have no awareness of his presence or even to see him. She was not using the walking stick, and the dreadful puppet-like quality to her movements was unnerving. Her eyes were open, but they were glazed and staring straight ahead. She's sleepwalking, thought Michael. That's all this is.

He had an idea that sleepwalkers should not be woken abruptly, so he remained where he was in the window recess, and waited. Luisa crossed the hall. She was dressed as she had been earlier in the evening – the plain dress with the woollen shawl held in place by a silver brooch. No ethereal, floating draperies for this one, thought Michael. Unseeing, unhearing, Luisa unhooked the chain across the door, then reached for the two bolts on the front door, and drew them back. There was a soft scrape of sound, and then the groan of the hinges as the door opened slightly. Night air, cold and rain sodden, gusted in, spattering moisture on the oak blocks of the floor. The dark shapes of the old trees lay across the oak, and for a moment Michael thought they formed into the outline of a man standing in the doorway. Then it was gone. Luisa closed the door, slid the bolts back, and replaced the security chain.

She's let him in, thought Michael. She heard him trying to get in, and she's opened the door to him. There was no one there, but Luisa thought there was, and she thinks she let him. In a minute she'll go quietly back up to bed.

But Luisa did not. She went to a small bureau in a corner of the hall and from a drawer took what Michael, narrowing his eyes in the uncertain light, saw was a key. Still moving slowly, Luisa went to a section of the panelling, and Michael saw for the first time that a small door was set into the wood: not a concealed or a secret door, simply a door that was so much part of the wood that it was almost unnoticeable. Luisa unlocked it, pushed it open and stepped through.

Michael stared at the dark oblong. He was uncertain what he should do, but perhaps he ought to make sure Luisa was all right before going back to bed.

The door in the panelling was slightly ajar; beyond it was a flight of stone steps, in semi-darkness. Of course there would be shadowy stone steps, thought Michael, wryly. What else is ever behind a low door in a wall? Do I go down those steps? Oh hell, why not? All he wanted to do was make sure there was nothing down there that might pose a threat. Like the shadowy figure of a man with a blown-leaf scar …?

The steps looked old – certainly as old as the house, if not older. They were slightly worn at the centre, and Michael was irresistibly reminded of the steps in Ayesha's temple, in Rider Haggard's
She
, worn by the constant use of one person only – the immortal Egyptian Queen who had walked up and down them for two thousand years.

He stepped through the doorway, expecting to be met by chill dankness, but although it was noticeably cooler, there were no scents of mould or packed-earth floors.

A thick stone wall enclosed the steps, but as he went down they opened up, giving a clear view of an underground room at the foot. And after all that it was a perfectly ordinary cellar, of the kind that most houses of a certain age had. There was a stone floor and plain, whitewashed walls. Massive timber joists and thick pillars appeared to underpin the floors above, and seeing them, Michael had a sensation of oppression from the rooms and walls directly overhead.

It was fairly dim in the cellar, but there was enough light from somewhere to see that Luisa was kneeling at what, after a moment, Michael recognized as a prie-dieu – a prayer desk, generally found in private houses for devotional use. In front of the prie-dieu was a small table with two candles in holders and a small crucifix. The candles were not lit, but a small oil lamp had been, casting sullen shadows over the room. Luisa's head was bowed and her hands were clasped in the classic prayer attitude.

None of this was especially worrying, but it was faintly puzzling. Did Luisa regularly follow this eerie ritual? Did she unlock the door every night to let some shadowy figure in, then come down here? If so, it could explain why she had been so reluctant for Michael to spend the night here. But why, with the whole of Fosse House at her disposal and no one to question her actions, would she have a makeshift chapel in this chill, inaccessible room? Was it a remnant from the house's past – perhaps with a religious connection? But it was at least four hundred years since any kind of religious oppression had held sway in England, and Fosse House did not seem old enough to have priests' holes or secret chapels for Papist practices.

Still slightly concerned, Michael ventured down two more steps, which gave him a wider view of the cellar. As well as the prie-dieu there was a small writing desk with a chair drawn up to it; on its surface was a thick-bound book lying open, together with a second lamp, unlit.

In the far corner was a low table, half covered with a length of dark velvet. No, it was not a table, it was an immense oak chest, waist-high, iron bound, and with a domed lid. The velvet was bunched and creased, and it was possible to see that a thick chain with a padlock was wrapped around the chest. Michael had been thinking the cellar was not sinister, only rather sad, but seeing this chest and the heavy chain, he was aware of a dark unease. Why the chains? What was so valuable it had to be kept in an underground room and secured so firmly?

Luisa got up from the prie-dieu, bowed her head – again it was the classic gesture before an altar – then crossed to the desk and reached for the second lamp and the matches standing nearby. Michael was aware of a jab of apprehension as the match flared up, but Luisa's movements were smooth and assured. She adjusted the funnel of the lamp with the ease of familiarity, then sat down. Reaching for the book, she opened it, picked up a modern biro and began to write in it. Diary? Journal? Whatever it was, her whole attitude was one of utter absorption and Michael thought he could have stomped down the staircase in spiked mountaineering boots without her noticing.

But whatever all this was, and however odd it seemed, it was nothing to do with him, and Luisa appeared to be all right. Michael went quietly back up the steps and closed the door softly. Somewhere in the house a clock chimed the half hour past midnight. He was wide awake, and the prospect of lying restlessly in the old bed was not inviting. Could he put in another spell of work? Yes, he could. And if he left the library door ajar he would be able to see and hear Luisa emerge from the cellar. He still had a nagging concern about her – which was absurd, since she most likely descended to that underground room on any number of nights, and appeared to have done so without any noticeable harm. But he would like to be sure.

The library was warm and friendly. Michael switched on the desk lamp, reached for his notebook, and opened the file containing the Charterhouse letter from Chuffy. That part of the file did not, however, appear to contain any more nuggets, and after a quarter of an hour of turning over the faded, dog-eared pages, he abandoned it, and picked up another one. The contents of this looked older, but most of the documents were in French, and Michael, aware of his imperfect knowledge of the language, sighed at the thought of struggling with more translating. Perhaps Luisa would let him take everything back to Oxford where someone in Modern Languages would most likely zip through the papers with contemptuous ease.

But on the first of the pages were three words that sparked his interest. Liège. Holzminden. And Leonora.

Those three again, thought Michael. Are they linked? Leonora's certainly linked to Liège. But Holzminden seems linked to Stephen and can't be anything to do with Leonora. Or can it? I'd better remember this isn't an ancient mystery I'm uncovering, it's just a fact-finding task. And it's the Choir I'm supposed to be pursuing, with Leonora as a subtext.

Probably, the pages would only lead down a cul-de-sac, and most of the file would be on the lines of Chuffy's letter, or a collection of dull missives from some French connection of the Gilmore family, which somebody had thought worth keeping. But Michael thought if he was going to be burning midnight oil while his hostess wrote up her journal below stairs, this would be as good a place to start as any.

The clipped-together pages with the reference to Liège and Holzminden were written in a graceful hand, but Michael saw right away that it was not a form of French that would be easy to translate. It did not seem to fit into the category either of straightforward French or of the Flemish form spoken in parts of Belgium – although he was not sure if he could differentiate one from the other. I can't do it, he thought, torn between annoyance and disappointment. Then he looked at Leonora's name again, which appeared several times on the first page, and he remembered the Holzminden sketch and Stephen, and the impression that there was something here worth pursuing gripped his mind again. He would make a stab at this letter, because, after all, he had managed a fairly respectable translation of the letter to Sister Clothilde earlier. If nothing else, he might be able to pick out a few phrases and see if it was worth going on. He reached for the French–English dictionary again.

Stephen's letter had conveyed no sense of what Nell called a friendly hand from the past, but the letter in front of him felt different. Michael had the illogical impression that he might like the writer.

The opening sentence was relatively easy. It translated as, ‘I write this a little for myself but also for anyone who may one day read this, my own account.'

So far so good. Michael moved slowly down the page, making frequent use of the dictionary, at times finding it difficult to get at the meaning. French was not the writer's native language, and at times he – it was certainly a ‘he' – had not used or known the right word. But by the time Michael reached page two, the rhythm of the writing was starting to fall into place.

The carriage clock chimed one o'clock, but Luisa had not yet come back upstairs, and Michael thought he would stay with this odd, intriguing narrative a little longer. It was half-past one when he sat back and regarded the rough translation he had made so far. He had no idea if it could be believed or if it was some long ago attempt at a work of fiction. The places and the dates seemed genuine, although that did not prove anything, because how many novelists took a genuine historical event and hung their story on to it?

He began to read through his translation, double-checking some of the words against the dictionary. He had made several guesses and a few assumptions, and he had skipped some sections which appeared to be descriptions of irrelevant places or people, but in the main he thought he had grasped the gist of the narration.

After the initial opening sentence, the writing was vivid and a remarkable picture started to unfold.

I must explain, from the very beginning, that I was never a small-time thief. I've always thought – and worked – in a large way.

I have never understood why people steal inferior items. It is just as difficult – and equally risky – to steal the cheap or the tasteless as it is to steal the valuable and the elegant.

So without wishing to appear conceited, I will tell you, my unknown reader, that I only ever stole the very best. Almost always I was successful in my work, and at times I was even quite rich. There were other times, of course. Times when I had to flee a house or a city – once an entire country – for fear of creditors. As well as creditors there are other unpleasant people – the English have the word
bailiffs
for them, and they are a disagreeable species who actually move into one's home and summarily remove possessions to pay one's debts. I always avoided the ignominy of actually coming face to face with them, but there were occasions when I only avoided it by resorting to such ploys as climbing out of a window, or pretending to be an uncomprehending servant of the household. Once I feigned sickness, although on that occasion I narrowly escaped being taken to an infirmary where God knows what could have happened.